A four-letter word seems to be all it takes to either get the full attention from the female gender or promise the fleeing of the entire male population. Love fills the minds of this corrupt world at such a young age; success in surviving the temptations of it proves near impossible. Love drives desires, wants, sin, and stress with pressures of looking good, feeling good, and needing the so-called “completion”. Although love colors beauty, it makes a mess wherever it may go. This is due to the fact that there are hundreds of different theories on the matter, and hundreds of more opinions as well. It seems as if all of life and philosophy derive from this one independent concept called love. Whether or not it was done purposely, both Plato and Augustine, two very influential philosophers, sought out the meaning and fulfillment of life through the act and desires of this love. The difference, however, stands between Plato’s transcendent views on love and Augustine’s journey for that completion.
This two-way journey all started with the concept that perfection is not of this earth, but rather in the skies or thoughts of helpless minds and souls. “Plato felt that the individual could not undergo a moral transformation while living in a wicked and corrupt society. For the individual to be able to achieve virtue, the state must be reformed” (Perry, 80). Understanding that truth was visible through the closed eyes of meditation and concentration. He saw the world as a horrible pit that brought down one by one the victims of its darkness. However, he saw passed the darkness and came up with the philosophy that light can be sought out through one’s self. Although beauty, light, truth, and love stood lost in corruption, Plato found it base...
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It all comes down to the fact that love makes life. Although Plato’s aspect of searching for truth and love through transcendent eyes and Augustine’s concept of putting that truth and love into a belief are different, they both reflect the same worldviews in that this life contains a deeper meaning. All desires and goals in life root towards love and truth, therefore, the actions and desires acquired all lead to the same completion. Both philosophers, Plato and Augustine, thrived for completion and succeeded, but only when they grasped these deeper meanings. Having something to believe in makes this corrupt and dirty world smaller and makes perfection and completion inflate. Plato’s version of concentrating on that and Augustine’s journey for that love resulted in the same way. It looks like that one special four-letter word is all it is cracked up to be.
In his Allegory Plato shows us how a man ascends from the darkness of a cave to the light of the outside world. In this ascent Plato’s man passes through four distinct stages of cognition: from imagination, to belief, understanding, and finally knowledge.
Love and affection is an indispensable part of human life. In different culture love may appear differently. In the poem “My god my lotus” lovers responded to each other differently than in the poem “Fishhawk”. Likewise, the presentation of female sexuality, gender disparity and presentation of love were shown inversely in these two poems. Some may argue that love in the past was not as same as love in present. However, we can still find some lovers who are staying with their partners just to maintain the relationship. We may also find some lovers having relationship only because of self-interest. However, a love relationship should always be out of self-interest and must be based on mutual interest. A love usually obtains its perfectness when it develops from both partners equally and with same affection.
Parts of what follows below were actually painful to write. However, because of the ongoing misinformation campaigns launched by Plato the Athenian and his buddies, I feel it is my duty to write this. Before examining the present situation, however, it is important that I purge the darkness from Plato's heart.
Can a simple emotion such as love be regarded as one of the greatest weapons to create or attain power? It’s a renowned fact that human beings are by nature designed to need, crave, and even require love as part of their survival mechanisms. It comes to no surprise that one of the first accounts of antique poetry maintains love and the craving for it as its main theme; thereby, reinforcing the deep importance that it upholds in the lives of many individuals. Sappho’s “Deathless Aphrodite” clearly epitomizes the suffering and bitterness that arises from an unrequited love. In Sappho’s case, which portrays the case of many, she constantly finds herself in loneliness and despair for though she tries repeatedly, she is only let down recurrently as no one reciprocates the love she gives. It is only the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who holds
The concept of love is a very ambiguous, controversial, idea that is nearly impossible to come to a singular consensus on. In this essay, I will be describing and comparing two philosophical views on the concepts and ideas behind love. Through the works of Todd May and Plato, different approaches to the concept of love will be illustrated, as well as determining the similarities and differences between the two perspectives. As Todd May focuses on the intensity involved with the idea of romantic love, over the idea of sex and love, he insists that the most intimate relationships are the more intense due to the constant engagement you have with an individual ( ****) - the two of you that the relationship consists of creating a private world (May 1).
Why does one love? One loves for the sake of happiness. This was the common mindset in the pre-modern worldview from the time of ancient Greece. The ideas present in Plato’s The Symposium have however been replaced with a more contemporary view, particularly in Western societies. Allan Bloom details this transition in his work Love and Friendship. Bloom argues that the idea of “eros” has lost its true meaning; it has been morphed into a selfish and self-less act of mere sex: “Eros, in its Freudian version, is really all just selfishness and provides no basis for intimate human connection” (Bloom 24). Sex is no longer a form of a strong, intimate connection, but rather our contemporaries have allowed sex to become “no different from a description of eating habits” (Bloom 20). Society today sees sex everywhere, it is forced upon us by the media, but there’s no beauty in it. Love relationships once were for the purpose of exchanging knowledge, today it is a label frequently and erroneously used.
As any romantic will assert, love is by far the most powerful force known to human hearts and minds. This sentiment is espoused throughout history, almost to the point of cliché. Everyone has heard the optimistic statement, “love conquers all,” and The Beatles are certain, however idyllic it may be, that “all you need is love.” Humanity is convinced that love is unique within human emotion, unequalled in its power to both lift the spirit up in throws of ecstasy, and cast it down in utter despair.
Love is arguably the most powerful emotion possessed by mankind; it is the impalpable bond that allows individuals to connect and understand one another. Pure love is directly related to divinity. Without love, happiness and prosperity become unreachable goals. An individual that possesses all the desired superficial objects in the world stands alone without the presence of love. For centuries love has been marveled by all that dare encounter it. Countless books and poems have been transcribed to explain the phenomenon of love, but love surpasses all intellectual explanations and discussions. Love is not a definition, but rather a thought, an idea. This idea, the idea of love, burns inside us all. Instinctually, every soul on Earth is
Around the GCU campus, marriage and engagement is in the air. Men and women who have been together from a few months to a few years have made the decision to commit to each other for the rest of their life. In the Bible, there are four different Greek words that mean love: agape (Godly), eros (erotic), storge (family), and philia (friendship). In social psychology, there are three main types of love that combine to form different types of love. In Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, there are three main types of love: liking (intimacy alone), empty love (commitment alone), and infatuation (passion alone) (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2013). When intimacy, commitment, and passion are combined, an experience known as consummate
For the ancient Greek doctor and philosopher, Eryximachus, Love’s potential for health and destruction were rooted in its divine origins. Good love “stems from the Muse Celestia” and “Common Love,” from “Polymnia” (Symposium 22). He saw these two loves as at the center of human/divine communication: “all the ways in which gods and men communicate with one another—are solely concerned with the perpetuation or the cure of love” (Symposium 23). Love provided the link, then, between the mortal and immortal beings. It was a common project that both humans and gods could work on. Eryximachus further articulated, “It is (Love) who makes it possible for us to interact on good terms with one another and with our divine masters” (Symposium 23-4). It is the element of life that transcends the human realm, giving the people a taste of the divine in their own lives.
The Symposium, The Aeneid, and Confessions help demonstrate how the nature of love can be found in several places, whether it is in the mind, the body or the soul. These texts also provide with eye-opening views of love as they adjust our understanding of what love really is. By giving us reformed spectrum of love, one is able to engage in introspective thinking and determine if the things we love are truly worthy of our sentiment.
In this essay I would like to emphasize different ideas of how love is understood and discussed in literature. This topic has been immortal. One can notice that throughout the whole history writers have always been returning to this subject no matter what century people lived in or what their nationality was.
Philosophy is a subject where there is no sound answer or argument for any question. Plato's beliefs were created through educated assumptions and provide a valid argument. One can continue their journey on this Earth trying to finding true perfection, however the chances are very slim according to Philosophy. Rather, one should embark in a more adventurous journey, a journey into the mind since it is the only housing of true perfection. A journey into a Philo Sophia
Around the world people love. They live for love, they write for love, the sing, eat, cook, die and kill for love (ForumNetwork, 2009). Since the beginning of recorded time, people have wondered why love is such an intense and universal feeling. There is no culture in this planet that does not have love (ForumNetwork, 2009). This essay will only talk about romantic love were sexuality and attraction are involved. Romantic love, is one of the most powerful energies on earth (ForumNetwork, 2009), it is indeed one on the most addictive substances we can experience at least once in our life. The rush of cocaine and the rush of being in love depend on the same chemicals in our brain (ForumNetwork, 2009); we are literally addicted to love. The feeling of being in love does not depend whether the other part loves you back or not, it will help you feel more happy that is for sure, but the intensity of the feeling loved or heartbroken is the same, they both depart from the same principle: the love and desire of the other. Love remains in the most basic system of our brain, under all cognitive process, under all motor impulses; it is placed in our reward system, the most ancient systems of all (ForumNetwork, 2009).
Plato states that to understand virtue is happiness. In turn virtue suffices for happiness and is necessary. Also he intuits that human reasoning prevails over spirited element or a person?s appetite.